


Explanation, Demonstration, Inspiration

by Bright_Elen



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Allies With Benefits, Bittersweet, Choose your own level of angst based on whether you think it's canon-compliant or not, Don't copy to another site, Explicit Consent, F/M, Finger Sucking, Hand Jobs, Kissing Lessons, Maledom/Femsub, Masturbation, Oral Sex, POV Leia Organa, Porn with Feelings, Power Exchange, Sex Lessons, Sexual Frustration, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-12 01:23:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18436133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bright_Elen/pseuds/Bright_Elen
Summary: Leia is desperately lonely, maddeningly untouched, and ever in command. She seeks out the most discreet man she knows to fix as many of these as possible.





	Explanation, Demonstration, Inspiration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoveTheUniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoveTheUniverse/gifts).



> Many thanks to [ANTchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANTchan) for the beta! <3

Leia — secret operative of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, much-beloved proponent of sapients’ rights, Senator of the Galactic Empire, daughter of the Elder House of Organa, and Crown Princess of Alderaan — was horny. She was nearly nineteen and still as pure as the snow capping Appenza Peak, as virginal as any sheltered princess had ever been in all of galactic history, and completely innocent of the shared pleasures of the flesh.

And thus deeply, insistently, _maddeningly_ sexually frustrated.

Her own hands had been fulfilling when she was fourteen, taken the edge off at sixteen, and now only served to fuel the fire. All the extras she’d tried — warm baths, sensual oils, elaborate fantasies, highbrow erotic literature, trashy holovids — had been momentary reliefs, nothing lasting. When Amilyn, during one giggly late-night conversation, suggested Leia use her allowance to purchase a pleasure-droid, Leia had felt cold. She had no interest in toys or contraptions.

No. Leia had considered all possibilities, and she knew that to get what she wanted, she would need to take a lover.

That led to its own process: thinking of all the people she found attractive and how available they were to her, how difficult or easy it would be to get them alone on a regular basis, how likely they would be to return her interest, and any complicating factors. Her list started with twenty-three names, but over several days shrank to eleven, then six, then four.

Then she had the merciful distraction of a mission. It had been a few years since she’d ‘lost’ ships to ‘Rebel thieves’, and Rebel Command thought it was safe to do so again. But as good as she knew she was at manipulation and acting, there had been a moment in which she thought the Imperial port official could see through her. That she was going to be taken in for questioning. Yet, as scared as she’d been, her lessons in interrogation had given her the strength to maintain the necessary facade.

When she’d first started helping the Rebels, Leia had done her research. She’d known she needed training to be effective and stay out of Imperial hands. So she herself constructed a serviceable shooting range in the Palace cellars. She read as much as she could on guerilla strategy, tactics, and logistics. She began lessons in physical combat and underwent daily physical training.

And she convinced her father’s favorite intelligence officer to teach her how to resist interrogation.

Captain Andor had flatly refused to give her the same lessons he’d been given (which had honestly been a relief). He had, however, agreed to teach her the theoretical aspects. They spent several hours, spaced across a few weeks, meeting in secret so he could describe horrible abuses of power and the different ways someone could avoid or resist them. He made her memorize the way interrogators liked to alternate between pain and mercy, the different drugs an IT-O droid might carry and what the effects were, the things that happened to the human brain when under extreme pain. They were the most grueling lessons of her life, but, strangely, they also gave her comfort; knowing the worst that could happen to her if she was caught meant she could plan for it.

So while she was staring down the port authority, projecting every last ounce of innocent outrage she could muster, she was thinking about the lists of horrors she’d learned. Once they let her go, with apologies for having allowed Rebels to steal Alderaan’s ships, Leia shook with delayed terror and thought of Captain Andor standing two arms’ lengths away from her in a Palace storage space, spine straight, expression carved in stone while he told her how to keep secrets. When she could breathe normally again, she thought of the glimpse she’d caught of him one evening in the hallway outside her father’s study, smiling at something, and how she’d been struck motionless with how it transformed his face.

When she went to bed that evening, she erased all but one name from her list.

* * *

Leia spent another lonely, frustrated week in the Palace before Captain Andor was on Alderaan again. Even as a Rebel agent she still wasn’t told much, but Leia still had the list of false identities Andor used on Alderaan that she’d originally used to track him down for interrogation lessons. At a time she was fairly certain he would be finished with Alliance business, she summoned him to an out-of-the-way solarium that hadn’t seen much use since her grandmother passed away.

She was standing at the window, watching the sunset soaking the south garden when he arrived.

He greeted her from the door. “Your Highness.”

“Captain. Come in and close the door behind you, please.”

He came to the window as well, standing a respectful meter and a half away. She turned to him.

“I wanted to talk to you about a personal matter,” she said, and though she was careful not to give any sign, her heart began to beat faster. “And because it is personal, I want to be clear that you are under no obligation to me, and are free to leave at any time.”

There was the smallest tightening, then opening of his expression. “Understood,” he said slowly.

Turning slightly towards him, Leia reached up, found the hairpin that secured the end of her braid in its crown, and slowly worked it loose. “We’re both people,” she began, watching his reflection in the glass, “under constraints. Many of which we’ve chosen, or at least embraced.”

He didn’t turn to her so much as shift his weight in such a way that ended up with him several degrees closer to facing her. “True.”

“Even so,” she continued, and slid out more hairpins, slowly uncoiling her braid from her scalp, “even as willing as we are, it’s not always pleasant, or even beneficial, to be under these kinds of pressures.”

“It’s for the good of the people,” he said, and there was durasteel in his voice, durasteel and fire, as she knew there would be.

She had always admired him for it. But, now that she was allowing herself the indulgence, his conviction sent heat to her chest and a shiver down her spine.

“Of course. And of course both of us will continue as we have, because we both believe in what we do.” She was on the second coil of the braid, now. “But we’re still human.”

“Yes,” he sighed, as if he regretted the fact.

Leia looked at him more sharply. A number of details flashed through her mind quickly: the matter-of-fact weariness in his voice when he explained that a spy’s life was worth exactly as much as the intel they were in possession of. The way his expression closed off completely the one time she’d made the mistake of bringing up relaxation. The speed with which his smiles disappeared from his face. Those details, and a sudden intuition, made her change her approach at the last second — not a reversal, but reaching for a goal she hadn’t thought to consider before.

“And people notice, too,” Leia said, barely a heartbeat later, pulling out the last of the hairpins. She let her braid fall over her shoulder and hang to her waist. “We both have a reputation for being uptight. But while they tend to understand why I am, the most popular theories about you are completely wrong.”

Finally, he looked at her. She looked back, satisfied to catch his eyes lingering on her hair. He’d never seen her hair in anything but a perfectly coiffed Alderaanian crown of some kind. She looked back at the garden, watching the shadows lengthen as the sky flamed brilliantly.

“Oh?” He sounded tired, more than anything. Tired and guarded.

Well, time to poke the swordfly nest. “People think you’re uptight because you can’t bear to be out of control.”

“That’s reasonable.”

“That’s banthashit.”

He raised an eyebrow, with perhaps a hint of a smile at her profanity. “What’s your theory?”

“I think,” she said, stepping within arm’s reach, “that you’re uptight because you’re not in control. How could you be? We’re all at the mercy of this war, you more than most.” She swallowed, eyes dropping to his mouth and back up. “Besides, being in control is my job. I know it when I see it.”

Something in his eyes flashed — desire? Anger? Both? She couldn’t be sure.

“Even if that were true,” he said, voice low, tight, “What does it matter?”

“It matters...” She smiled, opening her embellished jacket, and shrugged it off her shoulders and onto the floor. Her gown was the same she’d been wearing the whole day, appropriate to her station, but the message was clear nonetheless. “...because I think it would be good for both of us to trade.”

A series of tiny, yet nonetheless intense emotions crossed his face in a heartbeat. “Haven’t I taught you better than to offer anyone power over you, even temporarily?”

Leia took a deep breath, heart hammering in her throat. “Cassian,” she said, the first time she’d used his given name, and thrilled at the way his eyes widened in response, “I know what I’m offering, and to whom. I trust you.” Another breath, shift another half-step closer, another increase in the crackling energy between them. She held her hands out between them, palms up. “Nothing will change outside our meetings. I’m not asking for the impossible, just a reprieve for us both.”

He said nothing for a long moment, eyes on her as intensely as they’d ever been when demanding the physical and psychological effects of truth serum. She remained still, letting him see her true feelings — loneliness, trust, desire.

After what felt like ages, he laid his rough palms over her own, the heat of his hands enveloping hers, and Leia squeezed, delighted. Then, slowly, Cassian leaned forward, pulling her hands to her sides, and then pushing them behind her back as he stepped yet closer, forcing her back to arch. Her heart was pounding, and she felt a swoop of dizziness in her stomach and chest and head, unbalanced in the best possible way. She hadn’t even realized a feeling like this was possible, but now that she was experiencing it, she wanted it, desperately, perhaps even more than she wanted his body against hers.

Cassian stood over her, watching her face like he studied maps for war, testing her.

He was so close, the heat of his body only stoking her own, his presence filling all her senses. She could feel him everywhere, even though the only real points of contact were his hands on hers, and already she felt lightheaded.

Still, he didn’t move. Waiting.

Leia trembled. “Please,” she whispered.

Something almost playful crossed Cassian’s face. “Please, what?”

Leia frowned, squirmed in the immovable grip that stoked her desire yet higher. “Please _do_ something. Kiss me, touch me, I don’t care, just—”

He pulled her to him, mouth covering hers, their bodies pressed together tightly as he kissed her. Leia hummed under his lips, delighted at their softness surrounded by the scratchiness of his beard, trying to follow his movements but too overwhelmed with how good it felt, how small and malleable and _his_ she felt, to probably be doing a good job. When he sucked at her bottom lip, her knees almost buckled.

Cassian pulled back, steadying Leia against him, releasing her hands to support her waist and shoulders. There was still desire in his face, yes, but more than anything, he looked thoughtful.

Kark it. That wasn’t what she’d intended at all.

“Was that your first kiss?”

Blushing, Leia had the urge to stand up and pull away, but Cassian was so warm and solid against her that she couldn’t bring herself to. “That bad?”

“No.” Cassian put hands on her shoulders, pulled back a little to look at her face.

Leia, a strange embarrassment and hope mixing uncomfortably in her stomach, raised an eyebrow.

Cassian brushed his fingertips over Leia’s cheek. “You really want a spy for your first lover?”

“I want you.”

His eyes went coldly distant. “And who’s that?”

Leia might have felt exasperated, if she hadn’t seen the haunted look in his eyes when he’d been giving her interrogation lessons. If she couldn’t guess at the toll it would take, living an assortment of lies.

If she herself wasn’t sometimes unsure of who Leia was, buried underneath the Crown Princess Organa.

“The man who gave me a skill I needed. The man who smiles at my father’s jokes.” She swallowed. “The man who kissed me just now. Is he available?”

Cassian searched her face for a long moment, then relaxed slightly. “Now, yes. And a few more times in the next month. After that, I can’t make any promises.”

“Who can, these days?” Standing so close was making Leia feel a swooping in her stomach, a sensation like she was on the edge of falling, and she made the decision to jump rather than continue teetering. She took Cassian’s hand from her shoulder, turned her head, and kissed his fingers, enjoying the slight roughness of his skin as much as the softening around his eyes. “Well?”

He took their joined hands and kissed Leia’s fingers in turn. “You still want to give me control?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll teach you.”

Part of Leia would have liked to raise a cool eyebrow, but that was hard to do pressed against Cassian. “Teach me how to kiss?”

A blunt finger traced Leia’s lips, scrambling her thoughts further. “Mm. Among other things. Much more pleasant than keeping secrets, no?”

Leia closed her lips around the tip of Cassian’s finger, just briefly, and the way his breath caught sent electricity through her whole body. “What’s my first lesson?”

“Did you enjoy the kiss?”

Leia’s pulse fluttered. “Yes.”

“Then that’s your first lesson.” He glanced around and brought them to a small, ornately decorated sofa, gently pulling her down to sit beside him, close enough that her left thigh was pressed against his right.

Leia’s heart was pounding at the contact, or maybe at having his intense regard so much closer now that they were almost eye to eye.

He reached up, fingertips landing just behind her jaw, thumb ghosting over her lips, skin rough but touch barely there. She’d been bold before, but his body heat seeping through her dress and his hands on her were inviting her to let go, to surrender to him, to do what she’d been wanting from the start.

So she did. She breathed, and watched him watch her, and tried not to squirm.

“Lips closed this time,” Cassian said. He didn’t need to cover much distance at all to kiss her, and she received him the best she could, shaping her mouth to his. He didn’t move as much this time, so his beard scratched less, and she could focus on the softness of his lips, his warmth, his hand at her waist holding her close.

He pulled back after a moment. “Now you start.”

Leia leaned in, steadying herself with hands on his shoulders. She was so worried about landing too hard that she trembled as she went, the first contact of her lips fluttering back and forth until she found the right pressure.

“Good. Now again, smoother.”

Leia tried to exhale her nerves, then moved in again, yes, smoother, though still not smooth. Cassian gave positive feedback to that one as well. The next kiss, Leia was overconfident, and even through their lips felt the clash of teeth.

“Sorry.” She was more than a little embarrassed.

The only sign Cassian gave of discomfort was to run his tongue over his teeth briefly. “The faster you come in, the tighter your lips need to be. Again.”

That one was better, and the one after that. When she had kissed him ten times in a row without coming in too hard or too light, Cassian felt she was ready to move on.

“Open lips. No tongue yet.”

Pushing and pulling softly at each other’s lips was easier to get right than kissing with the right pressure. Leia began to lose herself in the feel of Cassian’s lips, and she pressed closer, reveling in the solid warmth of his body against hers. Soon she was feeling almost feverish, heat rising from her skin like a sunburn, desire evaporating off of her, building up under her clothes, aching in every part of her but especially between her legs.

The next time he broke their kiss, a whine leapt from Leia’s throat at the lost contact. Cassian chuckled, but it was shaky, and his eyes were dark on hers when he pulled back.

He took a breath, then another. Licked his lips, a motion Leia found her eyes unable to resist. She looked back up at his eyes, almost golden in the dying sunlight, and was startled to see a heat in them she hadn’t imagined. Stars, did his physical passions burn as brightly as his devotion to the cause?

His hand wound up at the nape of her neck, fingers pushing up into her hair, and then he pulled her forward, sucked at her bottom lip, and when she gasped, his tongue slipped into her mouth. Not very far, just enough to find hers, but that was enough to turn Leia into fire. She melted into Cassian, opened for him, reveled in the way he could control her position with just one hand on her neck, hoped he would give her more, take more.

As if he’d heard her desires, he held her to him with enough strength that she could feel every bit of clothing between them pressing into her skin, and she clung to his shoulders. He deepened the kiss, and she sucked at his tongue.

He made a noise deep in his throat and she thought she might combust with desire.

Then he was pushing her back, gasping for breath, and half-chuckling.

“You always were a quick study.”

“You’re an exceptionally motivating tutor.” She licked her lips. “My turn?”

All amusement was replaced with banked heat, and Cassian nodded, receiving her as Leia leaned forward.

* * *

They kissed for what felt like hours, lips and tongues and hands filling Leia’s senses until she’d forgotten that anything else existed. The hunger in her core had been almost unbearable at first, but after the third round of tongue practice, it had receded to a tolerable pressure, one that made the kissing all the more delicious.

When she pleasured herself later that night, alone in her bed, the release was almost disappointing.

* * *

Three days later, Cassian showed her massage techniques. She had no idea — and probably didn’t want to know — where he’d learned them, but stars, they were heavenly. They took turns, him showing her a technique by demonstrating it on her, and then making her reproduce it on him. Her body was a quivering mess of heat and over-sensitive skin by the end of his first demonstration, and she spent the rest of the session alternately trembling under the strength of his hands working her muscles, and getting repeatedly distracted from the technique she was supposed to be learning by the feel of his firm body under his uniform. And that was with restricting their touches to hands, arms and back.

That time, she didn’t even wait until the evening; as soon as Cassian left the solarium, Leia locked the door again, lay back on the sofa, closed her eyes, and thought about his hands on the rest of her body. When she finally touched herself, her orgasm came on almost as quickly as it had the first time she’d discovered her clit.

* * *

It was a long, torturous week until she saw him again. When she didn’t need to be thinking about anything in particular, she was daydreaming about him, and when she was supposed to be focusing on other things, the pleasant memories and longing were an insistent background noise to all her other thoughts. Only a very few moments when she became completely absorbed in her work were free of thoughts of Cassian. She wasn’t sure if the constant, specific desire was better or worse than the nebulous haze of sexual frustration had been, but it was maddening in a different way, at least.

Perhaps most concerning of all were the moments when she wasn’t thinking about him in a strictly sensual capacity. Wondering what he was doing, where he was, who he was talking to; figuring out another way to dupe the Empire and fantasizing about him praising her for it; longing not just to welcome him into her body but also to curl around him afterwards, warm and safe and wanted in his arms.

So she had a crush, fine. That was completely natural and to be expected, and nothing she couldn’t handle. Missing her parents when they were busy was worse, and she dealt with that all the time, didn’t she?

Her daydreams and night fantasies continued, at any rate, and then, finally, he was back.

This time, he was already there when she entered the solarium, standing at the window to watch the breaking dawn begin to wake up the garden below. His hands were clasped behind his back like the soldier he was, emphasizing the line of his shoulders under his jacket.

Force, he was beautiful.

“Good morning, Cassian,” she said, locking the door as usual.

He turned to face her, expression almost fond. “Leia.”

Grinning and not caring how un-regal it was, Leia threw her arms around him, part of her amazed that he felt even better than she’d remembered, and then pulled back to kiss him, deeply, passionately.

They kissed for a while, and then Cassian took her to the window and stood behind her. She could see them both in the reflection, though he was almost entirely obscured by her white dress, only his face and hands really visible.

He bent his head, kissed her neck, and his hands came to her waist. Heat scrambled her thoughts and permeated her insides, and she was breathing hard even before his hands slid lower, to her hips, and then, to her great pleasure, her ass.

“Cassian,” she gasped, and arched her spine, pushing back into his grip more firmly. “Oh, oh, yes.”

His chuckle was low and close, making her shiver. “You like that?”

“What do you think?” she managed, and bit her lip as he kneaded some more. Her cunt already ached.

Soon, unfortunately, he stopped, and then caressed his way up her hips, lower back, and then around to her front. His hands cupped her breasts lightly at first, and then, as she gasped out more praise, began to play with them, gently squeezing, lifting them up, letting them drop just a little. She was moaning, and when he rolled her nipples between his fingers, she keened and almost fell back against him. Through half-lidded eyes, she watched the reflection of his hands on her, of his face, half-buried in her neck but still breathtakingly intense.

“Oh gods,” she gasped. “Now. _Now_ , Cassian, Force, I’ve been dying for you to kriff me for weeks.”

His hands stilled, and one of them slid to her hip. He pulled her closer, and she felt something firm press against her rear, right at the cleft of her ass. “Do you feel that?” he rumbled in her ear.

Oh, stars. The realization that it was _him_ hit her like lightning. “Y-yes.”

“Can you feel how much I want you?” he said, voice low and raw and curling into her ears, coiling around her spine and setting her every nerve a flame.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“If it were up to this,” he said, grinding his cock against her at the last word, “I’d be inside you right now. I’d have kriffed you the day you told me you wanted me. But it’s not in charge here.”

Leia’s breath caught. That wasn’t exactly how she’d expected the conversation to go.

The hand on her breast slid upwards, wrapped very lightly around her throat, then pulled her head back against her shoulder. Most the pressure was on the underside of her jaw, only enough on her throat to make her feel her own pulse against his hand.

“Alright?” he whispered in her ear, not the demanding growl of before but a genuine question that would respect a ‘no.’

“Yes,” she whispered back. “Gods, yes.”

His hand tightened very slightly, and she felt such a rush of heat and pleasure and desire that she was instantly lightheaded, chest heaving with breath, heart ready to beat through her ribs.

“My cock isn’t in charge,” Cassian repeated, and she believed him, because as tightly as she was pressed against him now, he wasn’t grinding or thrusting against her. “And neither are you.” The hand at her hip moved forward and down, and Leia’s knees almost buckled when his hand cupped her vulva through her gown. He squeezed, and she made a helpless noise, grabbed his arm and tried to press his hand further, harder, anything, no matter the fabric between them.

“Who’s in charge here, Leia?”

She tried to speak, but all that came out was a whine. Her hips were trying to grind down on his hand, but his arm against her hip was like a vice, completely immobile.

“Who’s in charge?” he demanded again, and pulled his hand back up to her stomach.

“You,” she finally panted. “You’re in charge, Cassian.”

“Correct.” Very slowly, he started moving his hand back down. “Who decides what I teach you?”

“You do,” she said, voice wobbling all over the place, shaking as the tips of his fingers began to pass over her mound again.

“And who decides when you’re ready for the next step?”

“You do.”

“Correct,” Cassian said. “Ask me what today’s lesson is.”

Half-dreading the answer, she swallowed, feeling that against his hand, too. “What’s today’s lesson, Cassian?”

“Today’s lesson,” he said, straightening up, stepping back, releasing her throat, and pulling his hand from her mound until their only points of contact were his hands on her shoulders, “is patience.”

“I— you— no,” she protested, brian still addled with desire. “What?”

He placed a chaste kiss to her temple. “Until next time.”

And then he turned to leave.

“What? No! Cassian! Come back here!” She stared in outraged disbelief. “You’re supposed to be relieving my frustration, not making it worse!”

He stopped at the door. “I will.” The weight of it shut her up. She believed him. “Just not today.”

She was still staring at the space he’d occupied long after he’d left the room.

Once she collected herself, she hiked her skirts up, leaning her back against the locked door, and brought herself to orgasm, thinking as hard as she could, almost spitefully, about the graceful handmaidens of Naboo.

* * *

Leia was angry, and then she was desperate, and then she was so, so grateful when she received Cassian’s message only two days later.  

She immediately went to the solarium, bringing the agricultural reports she needed to have read by the next day. She didn’t think she’d actually be able to concentrate enough to read them, but she couldn’t bear to miss even a second of Cassian’s time.

She surprised herself by becoming absorbed in the accounts of a cheap and portable water purification system that one of the farm collectives had been developing with the intent of bringing it to environmentally compromised planets. The parts that weren’t easily reproducible on most worlds could fit into a large shipping crate, and she was deep into cargo capacity math when footsteps beside her made her jump.

Cassian was standing above her, amused. “If I’m interrupting I can come back in a few days.”

Leia threw her datapad in the general direction of a padded chair. She tried to stand to embrace him, but Cassian leaned over her, hands on her shoulders keeping her from moving, and kissed her. She hummed and melted into the kiss, clinging to his arms, and felt her blood sing in response to the softness of his mouth, the way he cupped her jaw, his body looming over hers.

“Hello to you too,” she said breathlessly when they finally parted.

“Hm,” he said, mock frowning. “I’ll need to do better than that if you can still sass me.”

She laughed. “ _I’ll_ need to do better if you think that’s sass.”

He smiled, eyes dancing. “In my defense, only one other person sasses me, and his style is very different from yours.”

Leia raised an eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?”

He snorted. Leia thought she caught another expression there too, but it was gone so fast she wasn’t sure she’d even seen it, let alone what it had been. “We don’t talk about the outside world, remember?”

“Sorry,” she said, meaning it.

He sat down beside her on the sofa, and kissed her again. They kissed again and again, Leia getting increasingly more aroused and lightheaded, and still Cassian kept his hands on her shoulders and waist, not even going as far as last time. She followed his lead, much as she wanted to crawl into his lap and grind on the hard line she could see in his trousers.

They kissed, and she whimpered and sighed, and held his shoulders harder to keep herself from dragging her hands all over him. They kissed, and she wondered that she wasn’t a pile of ashes, her desire burned so hot.

They kissed, and then, as he was tugging her bottom lip between his teeth, he leaned in over her.

“You’ve been very good today,” he murmured in her ear.

She blushed furiously. “Th-thank you.”

He was ghosting his thumb over her jawline and collarbones. “Would you like a reward?”

It should have been infuriatingly condescending, but it only made Leia’s heart leap and her cunt throb. “Yes. Please.”

His eyes flashed, a thrill of desire or power or maybe both, and then he was pushing her skirt up her legs. She’d have torn the thing to shreds if he’d asked her to, but he seemed to enjoy taking his time, caressing her legs as he went, placing a kiss to her knee, giving her smouldering looks the entire time.

She was breathing like she’d run a kilometer when he hooked one of her ankles over the back of the sofa, put her other leg over his lap, and stroked her inner thighs.

“Cassian,” she whispered.

His eyes, so intense, softened into a tenderness that would have bowled her over if she hadn’t been ass over teakettle already. “Leia. Your surrender is so beautiful.”

“It’s yours,” she whispered back. Swallowed. “I’m yours.”

Cassian’s eyes widened, and the passion she saw in them was overwhelming. He fell forward, kissing her so, so deeply. She opened for him, and as she was sucking his tongue, she felt him pull her undergarment aside, exposing her to the air.

She gasped and he pulled back to look her in the eye. “I’m going to go slow. If anything hurts, or if you don’t want me to keep going for any reason, tell me.”

Leia sketched out a nod.

“Say it aloud.”

She swallowed. “I’ll tell you if it hurts.”

“Or?”

How could he be so composed? Leia wasn’t sure she could hold on to herself much longer, and there he was, holding the both of them. “Or if I want you to stop.”

“Good girl.”

He kissed her again, and then, right before pulling away, stroked his thumb down her outer folds. She moaned and squirmed closer, already wanting more, her entire being a chorus of _yes yes yes._

Another stroke, and his thumb was past the outer layer. He circled her clit, and she almost tried to move to make him touch her there, dammit, but then he grasped her hip with his other hand, holding her firmly in place.

“None of that,” he admonished. “If you want something, you need to tell me. Communication is important to good sex.”

Leia was very proud of herself for not screaming in frustration. “I would like it,” she said between grit teeth, “if you touched my clit, or fingerkriffed me, or, ideally, both. If it’s not too much trouble.”

Cassian, the bastard, grinned. “Now that’s sass.” He was no closer to either of her requests, just still circling her vulva lazily with his thumb, which felt lovely, yes, but was also a horrible tease.

“Cassian,” she wheedled. “ _Please_.”

His face became serious, and he slid his thumb into her cunt, easily with how wet she was. It was so good and not nearly enough, and she moaned half in pleasure, half in need.

“More,” she gasped out, clutching at her lover. “Please, Cassian, more, I need more.”

He pressed deeper, massaging her inner walls, and then retreated. He stroked her labia with his index and middle finger together, and she keened when he brushed over her clit, but that wasn’t his goal, not at the moment. It was only when he put those two fingers at her entrance that she realized he’d been slicking them up.

She’d taken two of her own fingers many times, but his hands were larger than hers, stretching her farther than she’d ever been before. Her mouth fell open and she groaned in pleasure.

“Kriff,” she said between moans. “Kriff, Cassian.”

He was taking his sweet time, as promised, and it took many more heartbeats than she wanted for him to push all the way in. She tensed around him, trying to get friction, movement, anything, and was at least gratified at the way his breath caught.

“Could you, ah, could you stroke me?” she mumbled out, hating her hesitancy and lack of precision language.

It seemed to work all the same, because Cassian gave an exquisitely good roll of his hand, pressing his wrist down, curling his fingers, and stroking her sweet spot deliciously. She threw her head back in a moan. “Gods, yes, just like that, please do that again, Force.”

He did, and it was bliss. He made her ask for it each time, but she got faster and better at asking, and soon he was kriffing her properly, deeply, exactly as she needed and so desperately wanted.

“Again, please,” just like all the others, but then she added, “and touch my clit too, please.”

When his thumb landed on her clit, still slick with her own desire, she cried out, almost a scream, and he only needed two more strokes to set off the strongest orgasm she’d ever had. The pleasure hit her like the cold did when she jumped into the lake in early spring, like a physical object, and blocked out everything else.

When she could interpret her own senses again, she was lying pressed against the back of the sofa, Cassian lying beside her, one arm under her neck, the other stroking gentle circles on her hip. She nuzzled his chest happily, tugging him closer with the arm not pinned between them.

She’d spend so much time fantasizing about the sex, she’d never thought about how wonderful it was just to be held. He’d even pulled her skirts back down so she wouldn’t be cold.

“Thank you,” she murmured into his shirt. “That was...mmm. Thank you.”

Cassian chuckled. Kissed her on the forehead. “You’re welcome.”

She floated in warm contentment for another few moments, and then she realized that his legs were too far away, and hooked one of hers around them to try to get closer. When she did, it became apparent that Cassian was still aroused.

She looked up at him. Swallowed. “Can I...help you with that?”

He considered her face, and then pulled away from her just a little.

“Unfasten my belt.”

It was a bit difficult, with their positions, and how her hands were shaking with anticipation, and probably compounded by the fact that she’d never taken off anyone else’s belt before, but she managed.

Cassian was looking at her with open affection, and that unbalanced her almost as much as his torrid gazes and passionate embraces. “Now the trousers.”

She took a deep breath and tried to center herself, to focus on the task. She didn’t shake as much this time, or fumble. When she had one part of his fly in each hand, she looked back up to him for guidance.

He nodded. “All the way open.”

She did, and swallowed again. His cock was bulging in his underwear, pushing towards her, and leaving an unexpected wet spot. She hoped he’d let her get him out of those.

“See the fly?”

Leia looked at the underwear instead of what was inside, and then she did notice the folds of fabric. “Yeah.”

“Go ahead.”

Leia considered the underwear before using both hands to carefully part the fly. She sucked in a breath at the sight of him emerging, thick and flushed and gleaming at the tip.

She didn’t think he was going to let her do it today, but she wanted her mouth on him.

“Your hand,” Cassian said, holding his open. She gave him hers, and then he was curling her fingers around his cock. She was instantly fascinated by the heat of it, how it was velvety and still hard, how it jumped under her touch.

“Good,” he said, voice shaking a little.

Good, it was nice to know he wasn’t completely unflappable.

“A little tighter,” he said. When she complied, his breath hitched, and her heart sped up to hear it. “Good. Now stroke up,” and he pulled her hand up with his, pupils already blown, “and back down.”

He guided her through two more cycles, and then deemed her skilled enough to do it on her own. She stroked him some more, reveling in his face growing more and more debauched, but then frowned.

“This is a lot of friction,” she said. “Do you really like it?”

Cassian blinked at her, and visibly scraped together enough brainpower to answer. “Unless you brought lube, keep going.”

She frowned, then got an idea. “What about…” She pulled her skirt up, only a little past the knee, but enough to suggest.

Cassian glanced at her legs, blinked, then blinked again as he seemed to catch her meaning. “Yes, shit.” He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

Leia drew the skirt completely out of her way, and then put her leg back over the back of the sofa. Stars, if she threw a leg over his hips she could kriff him right now, and stars how she wanted to, but it wasn’t what they’d agreed to. Instead, she worked her hand between her legs, stroking her vulva, her lips and even her clit a little, and then delved deeper, taking as much of her wetness as she could.

Then, hand glistening, she brought it back to him. When she closed her fingers around his cock this time, he groaned, clutched her tighter. When she began stroking, his eyes locked onto hers and he whispered her name over and over, and she never wanted to hear anything else ever again.

He came, suddenly, messily, pulsing in her hand, face open in an almost pained expression, and she felt something deep in her chest move, or maybe break. Leia was naked from the waist down and covered in his and her own sex fluids, barely able to breathe within the fierceness of his embrace, and there was nowhere else she would rather have been.

Whatever this was that she’d gotten herself into, there was no easy way out.

As Cassian came down, relaxing around her, she knew that she didn’t care.

* * *

That week, Leia was more subdued. Perhaps because she’d finally had sex. Perhaps because it had been very, very good. Perhaps because she’d gone from wanting to please and impress Cassian to worrying about him. She didn’t know the details of any of his missions, of course, but she knew they were dangerous.

She didn’t pry into her father’s records. He didn’t keep any that she had the ciphers to, but even if she had, it would only have made things worse, knowing what terrible things Cassian was facing while she was making humanitarian relief plans that wouldn’t stop violence, or making nice with Imperial bureaucrats to keep Alderaan from being suspected. Just knowing it was possible was bad enough.

It had only been three weeks, and she was already far more invested than she’d planned. It wasn’t a problem yet, but if she were being entirely prudent, she’d stop the affair before it became one.

She didn’t. Just the thought was intolerable, and she was carrying on as she always had, wasn’t she?

* * *

The next time they met, he kissed her against a wall, deep, wet sucking kisses, and between them, asked her how she felt about different sex positions. When her knees finally collapsed under the combined onslaught of his mouth and his voice, he lay down on his back, opened his trousers, and pulled his cock out. Leia stared as he pulled a condom from his pocket, showed her the right direction to roll it, made sure she could point it out, and then let her put it on him. She might have felt awkward, but the quiet, calm way he watched her prevented that. When her hands were still lingering on him, he told her to pull her skirts up and straddle his thighs. She did, and then he stroked her legs, kneaded her breasts and ass until she was desperate again, and then let her lower herself onto him, shaking, feeling his heartbeat in her cunt, the fit was so tight. He soothed her then, touching other parts of her, gathering her to his chest, kissing her again, until she was relaxed enough to move.

When she was, he gave her instructions, what pace to keep, how to roll her hips so she could take him deeper, what she should do with her hands. He made her ask for his thumb on her clit, and she did. When he gave it to her, she shuddered apart in a starburst of pleasure, collapsing on top of him.

He stroked her hair while she coalesced back into a person, and she was so warm, so happy.

Bracing her arms on his chest, she pushed up onto her elbows. When she shifted, she felt him still inside her, still hard, and he gave a half-voiced hitch of breath.

Feeling wicked, she grinned down at him and rolled her hips. He groaned, and grasped her hips, and thrust up into her. She gasped, and he grinned, this time.

“Okay?”

She nodded. She’d only made him come once before, and already she loved it. It gave her an absurd, but nonetheless welcome, feeling of accomplishment.

Not to mention that she liked seeing him unguarded, if only for a minute or two.

So his hands guided her, and she practiced her hip-rolls until Cassian’s thrusting accelerated to the point she couldn’t keep up any longer, and then thrust hard into her one last time. She couldn’t feel his heartbeat anymore, but she could feel his cock pulsing in her, and she already wanted to do it again.

They were lucky enough, that day, that after lying in each other’s arms for a half hour, watching the sunlight move across the walls of the solarium, they did.

* * *

Her father didn’t want her to know, but Leia had heard the rumors through her own sources. The Empire was building a weapon that, they said, could destroy planets.

Leia wasn’t sure that was possible, but she did know that even just mining operations could destroy a biosphere, and that was bad enough. Even just ionizing the atmosphere of a planet would destroy practically all its life.

She saw Cassian the next day, and his face was haunted enough that she knew he’d heard, too.

They greeted each other with a wordless embrace, as was customary. However, Cassian held onto her more tightly and for significantly longer than usual.

She didn’t object.

When he did let go, he gave her a long, considering look. “I want to try something more intense today,” he said.

She nodded. “I think we could both use it.”

He stroked her face. “Tell me the rules.”

“If anything hurts, I tell you,” she said, and he nodded. “If I want to stop, I tell you.”

“When?” His voice was so soft.

“Immediately.”

He nodded, and then he kissed her, hungrily. She responded in kind, trying to drown out her fear and despair and anger with his lips and teeth and tongue, pushing her body against his, and he’d never taken off his clothes before, but when she pushed at his jacket and tugged his shirt from his waistband, he helped her.

Soon they were both naked, and kissing again, and then he scooped her up and lay her on the sofa while he sat beside her. He kissed her into the plush cushions for a long moment, and then he was hiking her knees over his elbows.

He caressed her face with one hand, gaze locked on hers, not doing anything else. She couldn’t tell if he was waiting for her permission or just stopping to appreciate the view, but either way, it tugged at her heart.

“I’m yours, Cassian,” she said, and something incredibly tender moved across his face, and he brushed his thumb across her cheekbone.

Then, after rolling the condom on himself much quicker than she could have, he took her hips in both hands and sank his cock into her in one long, slow thrust. She was already wet enough that he slid in easy, and the stretch was good, being filled. He waited a moment, caressed her hips and breasts while he waited, and then slid out and back in again.

Then he took her by both wrists, pulled her arms over her head and placed her hands on the arm of the sofa. “Brace yourself.”

She did, pulse fluttering in anticipation, and then he was leaning forward, folding her legs back against her body, pressing into her more deeply than she’d thought possible. She was pinned, immobile, able to feel pleasure and desire, able to receive him and do nothing else, and yet, somehow, she felt free. The closest she’d felt to that freedom had been standing atop Lappenza Peak, wind in her hair, high on endorphins and hypoxia and the existence of the mountain itself. And, another contradiction: she felt clean and free and lighter than air, and also gloriously filthy. She wanted him to keep kriffing her like this for hours.

“Yes yes yes, you kriff me so good, Cassian, yes,” she found herself saying, and the fire in his eyes intensified as he thrust even harder.

“Please,” she said after a while, “please please please, Cassian, your hand, touch me,” and it wasn’t very clear but he understood, and worked his arm around her leg to find her clit, and rubbed and kriffed her into thought-obliterating release.

Unlike the other times, he didn’t wait or even slow down. This time, he kept going, his cock slamming into her sweet spot over and over, his body forcing hers down into the cushions, her legs to her chest, and still he kept going, pounding into her with enough force that she did need to brace herself against the sofa, was desperately trying to keep her head from hitting the arm. Through it all, the sensory overload of him kriffing her post-orgasm was tearing through everything she was, her body and her mind and every stupid useless feeling she’d had in the last month, and she might have been yelling but she wasn’t sure, could only ride it out, only let him use her body for his pleasure, only feel him in every atom of her existence.

And then he cried out too, like he was in pain, and gave a final thrust, and then stopped.

For a long time, she couldn’t perceive or even remember anything other than raw sensation. When she began to be aware of her surroundings again, she noticed that he’d rearranged her legs into a more comfortable position. He’d also conjured a blanket from somewhere, and pulled it over them both.

She dragged her head up to look him in the eye. He was watching her with bleary warmth, like someone on bacta and painkillers.

“That,” she started, then swallowed, mouth dry. “Wow.”

He smiled slowly and turned, pulling her onto his chest, an arm comfortably around her waist, the other stroking her back. “Yeah.”

She had to leave in about twenty minutes, but for the moment, she enjoyed lying there with him, their bodies soft and warm together, too kriffed-out to think too much about any problems at all.

* * *

That next week was strange; Cassian was at the palace for almost five days straight, due to whatever he was discussing with her father, and she even saw a mysterious, cloaked figure in the Palace that she was sure no one was supposed to know about. Having Cassian so close was extremely tempting, but she restrained herself. There was no question that whatever was brewing in the Rebellion was more important.

With that in mind, it was a delightful surprise when Leia entered her own chambers at the end of the third day to find Cassian leaning against the wall of her bedroom. She jumped, just a little, since she hadn’t been expecting anyone, but then a second thrill at his presence swept through her. “Cassian,” she murmured, locked her door, and then went to him.

He was weary, guarded, and weighed down. To be expected, really; Leia herself was exhausted and prickly. She leaned into him slowly, and kissed him cautiously, gently. He returned it in kind, and they spent several very pleasant minutes like that. Then they simply stood in each other’s arms, Leia tucking her head under Cassian’s chin.

After a while, he nudged her until they could look each other in the eye. “Do you want me to use my mouth on you?”

Heat rushed to her face and between her legs. “Yes.”

His hand reached up to ghost fingers across her lips. “Do you want to use your mouth on me?”

Leia’s mouth watered. “Yes.”

Cassian smiled, playing with her lips until she opened her mouth. Then he slid one finger into her mouth, just the first joint, stroking her tongue.

“Suck,” he said, the command hitting a sweet spot in her mind, and she did. Easy.

“Stroke me with your tongue.” He was watching her with steady interest, looking for all the world like his only concern was to impart proper technique.

She did, and that was easy enough. Then he started pushing deeper, and she had to swallow and change her breathing to avoid choking.

“Relax the back of your throat,” he advised.

She did, and worried about drooling, but it worked.

He pulled back again, almost all the way out, then slid back in. Out, in, telling her to keep sucking, keep working her tongue, even with the motion. It was a bit tricky but she got the hang of it soon enough.

Then he added another finger.

“This time, be very careful of your teeth.”

That was harder, but she managed, and two of his fingers pumping into her mouth was starting to get her very, very wet. She was very much looking forward to having his cock in her mouth.

Then, when she received his fingers without once scraping them with her teeth, he added a third finger. This forced her jaw open wider, made it harder to suck, harder to keep her teeth away. But she worked at it, because she wanted this, and because she’d noticed that his body was starting to respond, his breath coming faster, his hand tightening on her shoulder.

Soon, she could take his three fingers all the way to the palm with no teeth and lots of tongue, and he pulled free, taking more of her saliva with him than she was prepared for, but he didn’t seem to mind, just leaned in and peppered her with kisses and praise, and she felt as accomplished as she had after her first Junior Senate address.

Then, he kneeled on the floor while she lay on her bed, and he made her come three times, once with his mouth alone, the other two with fingers buried deep in her cunt and his tongue on her clit.

She almost convinced him to sleep in her bed, but he ultimately refused, though he let his eyes linger on her as he tuned to go.

* * *

The fifth night, Cassian arranged to meet her back in the solarium, now stark with shadows and moonlight. Leia saw the news in his face before he spoke.

“This is the last time.” His voice was cold, flat. She wished she could be offended but she understood how hard it could be to let yourself feel anything when you needed to be strong.

“Until when?” she asked, hopefully, stupidly. Well, everyone dealt with loss differently.

He shook his head slightly. “I don’t know. A long time. Maybe never.”

Leia nodded. She could already feel herself trying to be cold too, to shut out the pain.

She wouldn’t. She wanted every last minute with Cassian that she could have, and she wanted to feel them. “How long do you have here?”

He studied her face, sadness and regret obvious on his. “Twenty minutes.”

Leia closed her eyes briefly against the disappointment, then shoved it down. She leaned up on tiptoes to kiss him, her softest kiss yet in an effort to give him something good before he was lost to her. Lost to whatever darkness the war demanded of him.

He was motionless for a moment, and then, as she shifted her weight to pull away, he made a noise like he’d been wounded and pulled her into an embrace that knocked the air out of her.

“Leia,” he whispered raggedly into her ear, pain and longing and affection raw in his voice. “Leia.”  

She kissed him again, still soft, and then he guided her to the sofa. He caressed her through her gown, every part of her he could reach, and she did the same until he went still and moved her hands to his belt.

“I want you to suck me,” he murmured into her ear, voice low, rough, and somehow still sweet. “Can you do that for me?”

Leia agreed and worked his pants open. He reached over to a nearby chair, pulled the cushion from its seat, and put it on the floor in front of him. “Kneel here.”

She did, needing to keep hold of him at first to balance on the unstable softness, but found equilibrium quickly. They were still kissing, even as Cassian pulled his cock out, even as Leia scooted as close as she could into the open vee of his legs. He broke the kiss, put both hands on her shoulders, and gently pushed her down.

Leia kneeled and bent forward eagerly, a surge of arousal spreading through her as she caught Cassian’s scent. It was too dark to see well, but she still took a moment to admire his cock, a moment to mourn what she was losing, and then she opened her lips and carefully tasted him.

He sucked in a breath, hands tightening on her shoulders. “That’s it,” he said, thumb moving in a reassuring arc. “Relax and take your time.”

Leia worked up more saliva, put her hands on his hips for support, and kissed the head of his cock, surprised at how smooth it felt, loving the way Cassian’s breath stuttered. She pushed further, letting her lips slide over him, lapping at the slit when her tongue reached him. Cassian let go of her, grabbed the cushions instead, and she was both proud and disappointed.

Another swirl of her tongue, and she pushed forward again, letting him fill her. The slide of his cock down her tongue was making her core throb, it was so good.

She sucked as she took yet more of him into her mouth, relaxing her throat as she’d practiced, though it was more difficult than in simulation. Still, she was determined, and soon she was breathing through the curls of hair at his base and trying to swallow around the cock in her throat.

Cassian grunted. One of his hands found their way back to her shoulder, and she was pleased.

She pulled back up, dragging her lips up Cassian’s shaft, working her tongue around him as she went, loving the feel of him in her and the sounds he was beginning to make more frequently. She sucked at the head, tasted more precome, and slid back down his cock again.

Soon she was sucking him off in long pulls, slow undulations of her tongue and steady suction. Cassian’s posture spread out more and more, practically melting over the couch, and she would have smirked had she been able to use her lips for anything besides pleasuring him. She kept at that another dozen strokes, and then her jaw was aching too badly for her to continue.

She pulled off regretfully to close her mouth, massage her jaw. Cassian looked at her with eyes so dark she could barely see his irises, and put his fingers in place of hers, rubbing warm circles into her joints.

“You don’t have to squeeze the pillows, you know,” Leia said after a while. “I like it when you move me where you want. I won’t break.”

After another moment, he nodded. “Tap my leg three times when you want me to stop.”

“I will.”

He guided her back down, but this time, it was with a hand in her hair. She moaned when he encouraged her back down onto his cock, and again when his hand tightened in her hair.

At first he only gave suggestions, light tugs telling her when he wanted her to take him in and when he wanted her to slide back, but soon he was applying more pressure, pushing her far enough that his cock was bumping the back of her throat. It was so good, knowing she was giving him exactly what he wanted, feeling him come apart under her, the pull at her scalp electricity down her spine, all of it stoking her own pleasure.

Soon, he was moaning with uneven breath, and pulled her down around him hard, and didn’t pull her away this time. His hand in her hair pinned her against him, and she was soaring to feel how she couldn’t move, giddy as his cock pulsed on her tongue and she swallowed his come.

When he’d stopped throbbing, he gently grasped her shoulders and pulled her up, examining her face, fingertips touching her lips, the corners of her mouth. “You’re alright?”

Leia smiled. “Yes.”

Relief on his face, he gathered her to himself, cradling her against him, stroking her hair and pressing kisses to her face.

“You’re so good,” he was murmuring. “You’re so good, Leia, and so good to me. You deserve all the happiness you have, and more.”

The tender words hit something deep in Leia, and her eyes began to sting. “You are too, you know,” she told him. He looked away. “Cassian, you deserve happiness too.”

He said nothing, only held her tighter. She didn’t object, only shifted in his arms until she could kiss him.

It didn’t feel like they’d had any time at all, when Cassian’s chrono beeped.

She wanted to cling to him to make him stay. She wanted to wheedle with her father to keep him another week. She wanted to go with Cassian, royal duties and recognizable face be damned.

She wanted to cry.

She wanted to tell him something beautiful and profound, or something witty, or something that would lighten his heart.

 _“Stay safe.”_ Of course he wasn’t going to.

 _“Don’t die out there.”_ That was a great way to curse him.

 _“Good luck.”_ Too weak.

She clutched his hand. “May the Force be with you, Cassian.”

He squeezed back. Kept looking at her. Leaned forward for one last, desperate, sweet kiss. “Goodbye, Leia.”

And then he was gone.

Leia slumped down against the sofa cushions and stared at the moonshadows on the wall for a count of one hundred. Then, certain he couldn’t possibly hear her, she let herself cry.

* * *

Less than a week later, Leia lay on a bare durasteel bench, bright lights in her eyes, feeling hollow. She’d never lie on the couch in the solarium again, and not just because she was going to be executed. The couch was gone. The solarium, the garden, and Leia’s chambers were gone. The Palace was gone. Her parents were gone. Aldera and Appenza Peak were gone.

Alderaan was gone.

As much as her conscious mind refused it, in her heart, she couldn’t help but feel that maybe, if only she’d been cleverer, if only she’d taken an escape pod from the Tantive IV — maybe Alderaan would still be there. But if-onlys wouldn’t bring back those billions of lives, so mostly it was a pain relevant only to her.

At least she’d protected Massassi Base. She’d been terrified, at first, that the pain of torture would be too much, that her nervous system would hijack her will and give up the hope of the galaxy to the monster in black. But she’d been strong enough. (If only she hadn’t been, a traitorous part of her heart whispered. If she hadn’t been strong enough, it wouldn’t be her fault that the Empire found the Rebellion, and Alderaan would still be alive.)

No. The whole point of the Death Star was to destroy the planets of anyone involved in resistance. Once they caught her, she and Alderaan were both doomed. So her resilience in the face of torture was a good thing. It had saved the Rebellion.

She liked to think that Cassian would be proud of her. If he were alive. She still didn’t know what had happened to him. But maybe that was a mercy, too; uncertainty gave her the room to hope.

She didn’t know when she was going to die. They’d want to publicize it, she thought. Make sure everyone knew the price of defiance. She’d probably have to endure some more time in the cell. Nothing she could do about any of that.

To pass the time she curled up, closed her eyes, and tried to remember, in the finest detail she could, every moment she’d spent with Cassian. When she was done with memory, she’d imagine new meetings. Maybe one outside. She’d always wanted to show him the gardens.

Even now, with their reunion almost certainly impossible, the thought of him gave her hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi at[bright-elen](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/bright-elen) on Tumblr.


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